


Don’t They Look in Peace (Sometimes I Wish That Was Me)

by HunterPeverell



Category: Supernatural
Genre: ALL THE ANGST, Angst, Books, Dean-Centric, Gen, John Winchester's A+ Parenting, Literary References & Allusions, Loneliness, Lonely Dean, POV Dean Winchester, POV Sam Winchester, Pre-Series, Season/Series 10, Stanford Era, seriously, sort of, stories
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-01
Updated: 2016-02-01
Packaged: 2018-05-17 14:09:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,377
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5873461
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HunterPeverell/pseuds/HunterPeverell
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Dad and Sam left him, Dean turned to stories.</p><p>Or, Dean is famous for his one-liners, his references. He makes cracks constantly, grins like he expects Sam to get the joke. He was a hunter, though. When did he have time to get caught up?</p><p>Loneliness, Dean discovered, will make one do odd things.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Don’t They Look in Peace (Sometimes I Wish That Was Me)

**Author's Note:**

> Sam Stanford-Era and (somewhat) season 1 may seem like an asshole. I just always thought of him as more . . . self absorbed? I love him, I swear. But I think cutting Dean out was kind of a dick move. This story is not meant to bash either Sam OR John, so read it that why if you'd like, it's just not what I meant. Sam is amazing, and a very selfless person in my opinion. But he was once young and stupid, as we all were.
> 
> Also, most of my stories are Sam-centric. I figured it was Dean's turn. If there are moments where you think Dean is OOC, please (respectfully) tell me. I know I'm not the best writer, but I really do try to write in-character. I think Dean is a very angsty character, even if he tries to hide it, and he's prone to stewing in it (*cough* seasons 9 & 10 *cough*). If you disagree, drop a comment. Reviews are love, honestly.
> 
> Disclaimer: I don't own the Hallows (but man, Master of Death, that would be _awesome_ to put on my resume!) and I don't own Supernatural or it's characters. I imagine being Master of Death would make resurrecting Sam and Dean much easier. Too bad I can't have either.
> 
> Title comes from the song Pompeii by Bear's Den.

When Dad and Sam left him, Dean turned to stories.

It was an accident, at first. He had been cleaning his gun when the clip fell off the bed. Cursing, he had knelt between the two queens—hadn’t yet worked up the courage to order a single, kept hoping _someone_ would walk through those doors—and found a book below the unused bed.

He pulled it out—it was thin and the cover was dark blue. On the front was an old man with a long grey beard pointing a crooked finger into the distance. In his other hand a tiny brunet girl dressed in rags sat, clutching a shawl close, looking towards where he was pointing. _East of the Sun and West of the Moon_ read the title.

A children’s book. Someone had left a friggin’ children’s book under the bed in some crappy motel in who-the-fuck-cares Nevada.

The gun was clean anyway, and Dean wasn’t going to go find a bar for another hour or two—wasn’t sure if he even wanted to go out. To be surrounded by people who had friends, family . . . someone to go home to, to take care of. Not yet. Dean couldn’t do that just yet.

_“You walk out that door, don’t you dare come back.”_

_“Then this is goodbye.”_

_Dean had never heard such contempt, such . . . such hatred than had appeared in Sam’s voice. And the worst part, the very worst part was that Sam’s eyes were locked on his own, daring him to step forward, to condemn him like Dad, to beg for him to stay._

_In the end, though, Dean was silent, unwilling to take a side. Unwilling to be the cause of his family’s collapse._

Looking back, his silence may well have been the needle that popped their balloon.

Dean wished for some alcohol, but he’d run out of beer last town. A trip to the bar was looking likely.

Mental preparation was needed before leaving this room, though.

Dean sighed and looked down at the book, brushing some dirt off it absentmindedly. The book had been clearly loved. There were tears in the paper, and some of the pages were bent. Why would someone leave this well-loved book behind?

Feeling self-conscious, even though his Dad or Sam weren’t there to mock him, Dean sat down on the bed and stared down at the book. It was short. No more than twenty pages. It’d take him five minutes to read, tops.

The illustrations were a bit too serious, too somber for his tastes (not to mention there were too many clothes on) and it read like a fairy tale, complete with _“Once in a land not too far from here and in a time not too long ago . . .”_

He was going to put it down. He was—he didn’t have time for _fairy tales_. He was a hunter. He dealt with the impossible on a daily basis. He didn’t need this.

He ended up turning the page, however. And the next one. And the next. Soon it was over—seven minutes, it took him. He blamed the bad lighting and his constant pausing to wonder what the hell he was doing.

He stared at the last page, at the worn brown shoes so carefully drawn in the grass, and wondered what he had just read.

“I don’t have time for this,” he said aloud. He set the book on the table between the two beds and got up. He could go to the bar earlier than normal tonight. He found himself wanting to go.

That night he scored a chick and a hundred bucks and felt pretty damn good about it. She’d been a hot thing—plumper than he was used to, but with these wide eyes and flushed lips that Dean just could not refuse. Later, he left her with her curly red hair slick with sweat down her back and fumbling for her clothes while he headed back to the Impala, looking forwards to a good night’s sleep.

The book was still lying on the bedside table, of course. Dean paused, brain foggy with alcohol and loneliness, and picked it up again.

He read it once more before he went to sleep, and when he woke up the next day, mild hangover pounding just behind his eyes, it was still on the table where he had placed it.

He looked at the book, at the _story_ , and wanted more. He wanted more stories.

The random town he found himself in didn’t have a case. Dad had split a week ago and Dean had already been on three hunts all within Nevada. At first, when Dad had said he wanted Dean to do some solo hunting, Dean had been eager—he’d finally get a chance to prove to Dad just how good of a hunter he had become. After the first few days, when his over-excited, though trying to sound professional, voicemails were left unanswered, Dean had begun to suspect it wasn’t about him proving his worth to Dad . . . it was Dad getting away from his last son.

The thought left a bitter taste in his mouth, and Dean wished the nagging idea would leave him alone. Their family was already broken, damnit. Dad wouldn’t leave him, not like Sam. Not after Sam.

He was leaving for Utah that day, but he thought he could get away with going to the library before peeling out—after all, it wasn’t like anyone was waiting on him.

The library opened at seven o’clock, and had been open for nearly half an hour by the time Dean found his way there. He normally wasn’t an early riser—hated rising early, in fact—but today had found him awake at seven, his brain refusing to switch off.

He paused at the directory. Books had always been more Sam’s thing than Dean’s. Sam knew his way around the library as if he had been born in its bowels, and the ache in Dean’s chest at that thought was deliberately pushed away in favor of trying to figure out where he wanted to go. Usually he’d go straight to the history or mythology section when he came, but he didn’t want history. Didn’t want mythology. He lived most of that shit—he wanted something _new_.

So instead of his usual area, Dean turned instead to the fantasy section.

Dean had never had much time for fiction. His whole life was considered imaginary by most people—he fought monsters that couldn’t or shouldn’t possibly exist for a living, after all—and Dad hadn’t exactly encouraged Dean’s reading when he was younger. When he did read fiction, it was for Sam when he was little. As soon as Sam had turned eight, however, Dean had put his foot down, refused to read more. Sam was too old, and Dean had just begun noticing girls, noticing that book-reading did _not_ score.

Later, when Dean had to read books for school, he shoved away any interest the summary might have sparked. If it didn’t help Dean kill some sick sonovabitch, then Dean didn’t need to read it. Dean didn’t _want_ to read it. Dad wouldn’t have wanted him to read it—Dean needed to be sharp for Dad. He didn’t have time to read make-believe.

_Y’know, screw him,_ Dean thought, and marched into the rows.

Dad hadn’t stuck around, even though Dean tried his best to be like him. He wore Dad’s jacket, drove his car _(mine now)_ , listened to his music, talked like him, walked like him . . . and it wasn’t enough. Dean wasn’t enough. He never had been, and without Sammy gluing them together, Dad had no reason to hang around Dean. With Dean. For Dean.

Dean wanted to scream.

The fantasy section was in the far north corner of the library. Dean’s heavy boots weigh his feet down, and Dean wonders what the hell he is doing. Stories, what the fuck. He’s a _hunter_. Not a—not a nerd like Sam. He always took pride in being the Devil-may-care brother, the one who dropped out of school for the family business (except . . .)

(Except at Sonny’s, where he had read the books the older man had because he _could_ , and Robin had liked it, she really had. She had liked reading with him, and Dean had liked reading, and he had never told Sam and Dad because that’s not what their family business was.)

There were a lot of books in the fiction section. Dean just looked, eyes skimming the titles, trying to find something that looked interesting. As the minutes slithered away, Dean felt more and more stupid. What was he, a grown man, doing looking at children’s books?

He grabbed one at random and leafed through it. _Sweet Silver Blues_ by Glen Cook. The cover had some dude in a bathrobe leaning against a desk surrounded by a bunch of short people. One was a babe with long curly black hair, staring boldly up at the man. Maybe she was offering to give him a blowjob, or something. It’s not like she’d have far to reach. He turned it over, read the summary. It had a lot of “mythical” creatures (yeah, centaurs were nasty bitches) but the guy, Garrett, was a private investigator. Couldn’t be all bad, if the dude solved crimes that involved the supernatural.

Stealing the book was laughably easy.

He read it on the road, at the diners and at the gas pumps, late at night when his time at the bar was done and the chick had left. He finished it quickly, liking the snarky detective and the companions in his life. Garrett was all alone, but he was fine. He had support when he needed it.

Dean could relate.

(Plus, the Dead Man kinda reminded him of Bobby.)

He kept the book, reluctant to let it go. Instead, he made his way to a bookstore in Bumfuck Nowhere, New Mexico. There, he picked up _A Door Into Summer_ by Heinlein. Read it  
in three days.

He found _The Great Book of Amber_ by Zelazny in Gunnison, Colorado, along with a vengeful spirit. It was ten books in one. Took him a month to finish.

Found _To Kill a Mocking Bird_ in Laramie, Wyoming after a nasty poltergeist attack. Kept having to put it down to digest it, figure out what the fuck was happening in that wacked-out town.

_The Golden Compass_ was read in one day—he couldn’t put it down, addicted to the idea that the main character was never really alone. He stayed in Lebanon, Kansas, so that he could finish it. Took care of the Black Dog the night before.

He didn’t know why he was reading so much—wasn’t like he had, before. But things . . . things turned out okay, in stories. They were predictable, they were comforting. Dean knew what would happen in the book, even if he didn’t know how it would happen.

He wished things would turn out all right in his family, too.

By now, it was November, and Sammy had been gone four months. Dad had been gone for almost four. Dean set down the book he was currently reading— _She_ by Haggard—and clicked on the TV, tired of reading for the moment.

He caught the first part of the fourth episode of _Star Wars_. He’d seen them before, of course. He was too young to watch them in theaters (the sixth one had come out the year Sammy was born, so he had only been three and his mom hadn’t wanted to take him, telling Dad he was too young. He remembered that conversation—Dad thought he could handle it. It had led to a fight, and Dean had cried in his room later that night.)

He had watched the trilogy before, sort of. He’d been busy trying to get into Mel Brown’s good graces, trying to show just what he could do with his tongue that set him apart from the other boys. He knew there was a really hairy guy, another dude, some other dude, and a hot chick. There was space, explosions, and battles. That was, really, all he knew.

Now he settled in and was reminded that not all stories came in book format.

The story was surprisingly good. Dean connected immediately with Han Solo, the grinning rascal with the beauty of a ship. Solo had a smart remark and a grin for every occasion, and Dean found himself laughing more than once over the course of the movie, found himself trying to mimic his facial expressions, his care-free attitude.

(Maybe if he couldn’t be like Dad . . .)

He stayed up late the night, watching the trilogy and ordering in.

He didn’t go the bar.

After that he still read, of course. _1984, The Odyssey, Catch-22, On the Road_ (one of his favorite books ever), _Brave New World, Little Women_ (which was not what he was expecting—once again, too many clothes), _Atlas Shrugged_. Now, however, he went to the theaters as well—he snuck in most times, usually in small towns where he was one of the only ones in there. As time marched on and it became 2002, Dean watched movies. _The Mothman Prophecies_ in January, _Spider Man_ in May (Parker was such a whiney little shit). _The Bourne Identity_ showed up in June, and Dean watched it once he was done with a werewolf attack. _Men in Black 2_ came out in July. He liked it so much he went and found the first one.

(Damn, he wanted a Cricket.)

He got to know the library just as well as Sammy had. He hunted everything he could—spirits, monsters, and every other creepy-ass murderous supernatural thing he came across. He got to be well-known in the hunter community as a young, but promising hunter, spawn of the famous John Winchester.

When people would ask him out for drinks, Dean never refused. He’d drink and laugh and bet and hustle and put on a show, trying to hide how empty he felt under a mask of “Give ‘em Hell” that some hunters wore like a crown.

Dean figured it was time to work on his own mask. He could lie with the best of them. Sam always called him on his bullshit, so Dean figured that if he got good enough to fool Sammy whenever Sam called him (or, more likely, when Dean called Sam. Sam had never once called him in the months since he left) then the mask would be good enough. After all, Sammy wasn’t an easily-fooled little kid anymore. Sammy wasn’t around. Dean just had to fool himself.

Every night, after the drinks or the fucks or the celebrating, Dean would stumble back to his room, pick up whatever book he had been reading, and read one paragraph, one page, one chapter—whatever he could handle. He read it and then set it carefully down on the table, alcohol coursing through his body more often than not, roll over, and sleep.

It was a routine. It was a pattern. It was something for him to hold on to.

The months blurred past him, and the only way he could tell was through his stories.

The second _Lord of the Rings_ movie was coming out later that year—there was a preview at the screening of the second _Harry Potter_ movie in November—so Dean went and found the first one. He got the extended edition from a nearby store and spent three hours or so watching it. It was fucking awesome—two guys going and stopping the evil dark lord guy all by themselves when no one thought they were important or special. 

It made him miss his brother all that much more. He couldn’t let that story go.

The second movie was just as awesome.

2002 melted into 2003, and Dean read and watched and hunted. He met up with Dad occasionally—stress on the occasionally. Dad always called once every two weeks at least, just to let Dean know he was alive, which Dean appreciated, even though all he wanted to do was scream at his Dad, ask him _am I doing enough? If I kill this fucker, will you come back? If I gank this bitch, will you visit?_

Dad never mentioned anything about teaming up, though.

So Dean kept doing what he did. He devoured stories and hunts and tried to convince himself that he couldn’t need—or want—anything else from this life.

He called Sam twice in the last half of 2001, three times in 2002. He called him once in 2003. That last time was January, and Dean’s phone was a cold weight in his hand from the brisk Minnesota air. He was in his room, had just gotten back from a hunt gone sour—blood was oozing through the make-shift bandage he had made, and Dean just really, really needed to hear his little brother’s bitchy voice, complaining about Dean and how screwed up their family was.

“Sam?” Dean asked once he picked up.

“Dean,” Sam’s voice was neutral. No anger, no nothing. Dean’s forehead creased as he started trying making conversation, to tell Sam about the close call he had just had. Sam would bitch and complain about Dean taking care of himself and Dean would ask how his apple-pie life was going and Sam would give him the barest details.

Dean wanted more, of course. He wanted Sam to be able to tell him everything (he’d practically _raised_ the kid, for Christ’s sake) but he’d take whatever he could take.

“Dean,” Sam interrupted before Dean could get into anything. Dean broke off mid-word.

“Yeah Sammy?” Dean asked, his stomach churning because what if Sam was in trouble, what if there was a hunt and Sam needed (wanted) back up . . .

“Don’t call me again,” Sam said, a note of finality in his voice that hit Dean like a blow. “You aren’t part of my life anymore.”

And Sam hung up.

Dean broke the phone when he threw it against the wall, but he didn’t even care. He snatched up a copy of _Bitter Gold Hearts_ , the second Garrett book, found in a second-hand bookstore in Bedford, New Hampshire, and read it until his eyes hurt from trying to stay open.

He fell asleep with the book on his chest, pages splayed like a dead thing.

In the morning he packed up, mouth set in a tight line, eyes open and hard. He carefully, meticulously, smoothed the pages of his book flat and closed it tight. Everything was packed up with military precision, just like Dad had taught him. He checked out without a smile, back stiff. He felt old and hollow and bitter.

He bought a new phone at a gas station, texted Dad the new number. Claimed a ghost broke his other phone. His Dad responded only with a period, which meant he had received the news but was too busy to respond. Dean’s hands trembled as he put the phone away. The cold morning wind cut through his jacket, and he tried to tell himself that the cold feeling inside his chest was from that.

He got in his car, turned up Dad’s— _his_ , his now—music and drove away. He didn’t remember the town name, didn’t bother to check. He still swore to himself to never return.

He let the voice of Lynyrd Skynyrd wash over him, blaring from the radio, and very pointedly thought of nothing at all.

He was in Doylesville, Pennsylvania in June, when he stayed for a week so he could wrap up a case and see some new movies. The case, a curse made by a witch with a hatred for cheating women, was taken care of and Dean wandered into a theater nearby and found himself sitting and watching a movie called _28 Days Later_. It was hilarious—Dean could help but snort at the misguided intentions of the main characters. Serves them right, dicking around with chimps.

The next day he went back, watched Pirates of the Caribbean, and couldn’t stop laughing—hadn’t he wanted to be a pirate, when he was younger? He and Sam would pretend to be pirates, jumping from bed to bed, shouting words like “yo ho!” and “Argh, me hearties!” while trying to impale each other with blunt pencils. The thought left a bittersweet throbbing in his chest, and he instead thought about being an _actual_ pirate, with a ship and some treasure and a crew he could trust . . .

In a way he kinda was a pirate, actually. He had his ship of steel, his weapons, his stolen treasure, and got _plenty_ of booty.

His snorting caused some woman in her fifties to frown disapprovingly at him. Dean couldn’t care less.

He got out of the theater he checked his phone and saw that he had a missed call from Dad. Dean hurriedly called back, cursing himself for switching it to silent.

“Dean,” his dad said once he answered.

“Dad, I’m sorry—” Dean began.

“Where are you?” his dad interrupted.

“Uh, Pennsylvania,” Dean said.

“Good,” his dad said shortly. “Meet me in Parma, Ohio tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow?” Dean asked, checking his watch automatically. It was early afternoon—two thirty.

“Dean . . .” his dad warned.

“I mean, yessir,” Dean said. “Sorry, sir. I can be there tonight.” He had been on his own for so long without anyone else, he had almost forgotten that Dad wanted prompt answers without question. _Stupid_. Hadn’t he been following Dad his entire life?

Being alone on the road did feel like forever, in a way. It’s easy to forget, to push away, the time when his family was there with him. The Winchesters were screwed up, no doubt about it, but they had been _family_.

“Call me when you get a motel and we’ll meet up.”

“Yessir,” Dean muttered.

“Good,” Dad said and then hung up. Dean brought the phone down from his ear and stared at it for a second.

“Fuck,” he cursed softly. Thoughts of pirates and ships were already fading from his mind. A hunt with his dad. A hunt with someone else, someone who was _family_.

Dean didn’t like how that concept already seemed foreign to him.

He had been alone too long.

He shied away from that thought. Got in the car, popped in Blue Öyster Cult, didn’t think of anything until he was parked in front of his motel. He had been planning to stay the night.

Dean knew, from studying maps most of his life, guiding Dad, that Parma wasn’t far—six or so hours. Dean could be there by tonight, but he guessed that Dad was further out if his dad was going to meet him there tomorrow. He opened up his motel room and glanced around.

With just him there, the books he read had piled up. Stolen or bought, second hand or new, they spread across his room. There were a few DVDs of his favorite movies or TV shows—he had managed to find a recording of some of the episodes of _Mork and Mindy_ , which he had snatched away from some businessman in a store in Montana. He had been watching it the night before, trying to relax after a hard day’s research. He ejected it and stuffed it back in his case.

With a sigh, he stuffed his favorites in a duffle bag and tucked it deep into the Impala, where his dad was unlikely to look. He then packed up and was out the door and on the road in less than half an hour.

Listening to Bob Seger, Dean hummed along to _Night Moves_. He beat his thumbs against the steering wheel and sang under his breath.

Even if he was pissed at Dad for leaving him behind, for breaking their already fractured family completely apart, he couldn’t help but want to see him, want to be with him because _fuck_ he was lonely. 

He had stopped lying to himself about that months ago.

Dad showed up around eight o’clock the next day in front of Dean’s room. Dean was already up and ready to go—he had eaten breakfast and had a takeout bag waiting for Dad because he _knew_ his dad hadn’t stopped to eat.

“Dean,” Dad said in greeting and sat down at the table. He pulled out his journal and started eating. “So there’s two werewolves in town. We need to find out who—last full moon is tonight.”

No _good to see you_ , no _thank you for the food_. Dad had done that all of Dean’s life, had left Dean in charge of everything without expecting his dad’s praise. Somehow it cut deeper, this time. Dean just wanted to talk to his dad. Wanted to show him that he’s been a good son, a good soldier.

“Any ideas who?” Dean asked instead, looking down at the newspapers that Dad had collected. The killings go back each month for five months. Most of the deaths were centered on a business in town, some branch of a bigger industry Dean hasn’t heard of and doesn’t give a shit about.

Dad pulled out a clipping from his journal and set it down. “I’ve narrowed it down. It all centers around this corporation.”

Dean peered over the paper, eyes now well used to reading skimming the words. “I can make an appointment,” he offered. “Scout out the potential contesters.”

Dad nodded. “Let’s take these fuckers down,” he said.

Dean nodded and left, jumping into the Impala and taking off to the building.

Working with Dad was . . . different from how Dean remembered it. He seemed grimmer, more obsessed than before. Dean hadn’t even thought that was _possible_. Dad hadn’t seen him in over a year, called only to make sure Dean was alive and assure Dean that he was alive in turn, but Dad didn’t ask how Dean was. He didn’t ask what Dean had been up to, what he had seen, not even when there was a lull in their investigation and they had a few minutes to breathe. Dad spent that time in stony silence, staring straight ahead while Dean fidgeted and wished for a book.

If Dean thought that being back with Dad would abate his loneliness, he was sorely mistaken.

The werewolves turned out to be two corporate drones that had turned and were killing their bosses because they wanted a pay raise in their human life. Dean didn’t blink twice  
before shooting them both.

After that was taken care of, Dad looked at Dean and asked, “Want to go to Cape Girardeau with me?”

Dean wasn’t strong enough to say no.

He followed Dad down to Missouri with AC/DC playing and tried to lose himself in the music. His stories in the back pressed in close, whispering their words in his ear. He turned the music up.

There wasn’t much in Cape Girardeau, just a kelpie with a taste for little kids and a journalist named Cassie.

Dean liked her a lot—she was smart, beautiful, and witty. He relaxed around her; found she shared his passion for stories.

Dean didn’t tell her about the fantasy novels in his trunk, about the movies he loved to see. Instead, he told her about the waitress with the funny rash and the truck driver with the badly shaved beard. He and Cassie told each other people stories, stories that had happened to them or the people around them.

Dean drank it all in.

They were _stories_ , even more real than the ones he had found and read and watched. They were stories about the humans that Dean was trying to save, the reason his life was shitty, filled with bad food and horrible motels.

Dad had never mentioned the people they saved—he was a hunter, he focused on the things that needed to be hunted so that he could find the Thing That Killed Mom.

But Dean, as he listened to Cassie talk about a little girl she had helped, clearing the girl’s father’s name about some owed money, Dean thought that Dad had it wrong.

Dean was a hunter, but that he hunted was secondary. These people, the people that he and Cassie spoke about, the ones with the seedy smiles and adorable dimples, they were why he did what he did. They were his priority.

_Saving people, hunting things_ , Dean thought.

That was the Family Business.

He saved people _by_ hunting things. Not the other way around, where he hunted things and _maybe_ saved some people.

Perhaps he’d even become a story those people told their kids.

Dean couldn’t think of anything better, becoming a story. There was nothing better. Stories—stories were there, always. One day Dean would die. His story would not. Because people would remember him. They would say _a man saved me once._

_Who?_ someone else would ask.

_I don’t remember his name, but I’m alive because of him._

Dean didn’t care if his name was remembered.

He told Cassie this one night, tracing shapes into her back, her curly hair tickling his cheek. She murmured something he couldn’t hear, and he kissed her tacky shoulder. The darkness soothed him, soothed his eyes, which were sore from research and bright, harsh computer screens. The moonlight, sliced into pieces from the blinds, fell across the crumpled sheets.

He smiled at the moon, wished Sam would talk to him. Wished he could hold this amazing woman close and never have to leave. Wished he could just let it all go.

He closed his eyes and fell into an easy sleep.

Cassie flipped when he told her the Truth. She told him to lose her number, never come back. He did so, heart breaking, because was there anyone he could keep? Was there anyone who would stay in his life?

Was he such a terrible person that he would always be alone?

After that, Dad split again, didn’t even tell Dean until Dean woke to the ringing of his cell and listened to Dad’s voice tell him he did good, but Dad had a lead and Dean needed to go back to hunting. Dean tried not to break this phone, either. One broken phone over family members was more than enough.

He started wandering again and collecting books and movies and tried to convince himself that this was enough even though it really, really wasn’t.

He read _The Last Unicorn_ in Kentucky, _The Lord of the Flies_ in Wisconsin. He found a tattered rendition of _the Hobbit_ in Massachusetts and a battered copy of _The Puppet Masters_ in Maryland. He read mainstream crap—not very much, didn’t like the repetitiveness of the cheap, clichéd plotlines—and the harder to find books—the book _The Man Who Was Magic_ was found on a fluke, really. Right place at the right time.

He read historical fiction, science fiction, adventure, fantasy. He read ghost stories and stories about desperate futures. He read stories with male leads, with female leads, with heroes and villains. Anti-heroes, sympathetic villains. Children, adults. Over and over the cycle continued until Dean could lose himself in the tiny details that made each book different.

Daytime TV started attracting him—mindless crap he could pay attention to if he wanted, or not if he wasn’t in the mood and just wanted voices filling the void his father and his brother usually filled. He rediscovered Sesame Street, looks up one morning to the high-pitched voice of the little fuzzy red creature he later learns is Elmo.

Bert and Ernie are _so_ fucking gay.

But there are other channels—Cartoon Network, Disney Channel, the WB, Comedy Central, Nickelodeon, and CBS. Dean paid attention when he wanted to, though he mostly just made fun of the different things that played across the screen. It distracted him.

He was in Who-the-hell-knows Georgia, working a skinwalker case, when he came across a café. The skinwalker had some connection to it—personally, Dean couldn’t see why, the place was for a bunch of hippie freaks—and Dean was scouting it out. To blend in, he had dressed up a little, wearing a rock band t-shirt (you could never go wrong with AC/DC) and jeans with a few holes in them. He wore his bracelets and his rings and had a book out so he could avoid looking at the vomit-inducing _save the world!_ shit that decorated the walls.

It was _American Gods_. Dean had just picked it up in that town, had barely read the first chapter.

“Whatcha got there?” someone asked.

Dean looked up to see one of the servers in front of him. The kid was in his late teens—high school age, Dean guessed. Nineteen at most, sixteen at least. He had black hair with one blue-dyed streak and friendly brown eyes. His acne needed medical help.

“A book,” Dean said, trying to inject as much duh as he could without actually vocalizing it.

The kid blushed. “Um, I know that.”

“Good,” Dean said, turning back to the pages. “I’ll have a coffee.”

“Of course,” the kid said quickly. He disappeared for a few minutes only to return with a steaming cup (it looked hand painted, the fuck?) of black coffee and a container of sugar and crème and other crap Dean would never touch.

“What?” Dean asked when the boy didn’t leave.

The kid blushed even harder. “I like that book,” he said. “And it’s nice to have some guy like you reading. Have a good day, man.”

“What do you mean—” Dean started, but the kid was already gone.

Dean glared down at his brightly colored cup, black coffee within, and wished bitterly that he was someone else, if only for a moment. Just five minutes where he could be normal. Where he didn’t have to go into the Family Business. Where he could look like someone who read books without hippies commenting on it. Where he wouldn’t even have to deal with hippies in the first place.

_But then who would save the people?_ A traitorous voice asked inside his head.

Dean slapped a few bills down for his undrunk coffee and left the building. He could scope from the outside easily enough.

He didn’t read in public again.

He drove and drank and fucked and hunted. He’d pull over to the side of the road and park his baby, sit on her hood, and look up at the stars. He wondered what stories they could tell. What stories they had seen. He felt a bit stupid, because stars weren’t alive. They didn’t know stories.

That didn’t stop him from making some up and pretend he was telling it to a whiney, shaggy-haired teenager who just wanted to leave his family behind. He imagined the snorts of laughter that his brother would try to hide behind an unimpressed eyebrow like _really Dean?_

_I swear Sam_ , Dean would say, shit-eating grin firmly in place. _That’s how it happened. That’s what that constellation is about._

Sam would gripe and point out some myth that Dean had heard of but didn’t care to remember, but Dean could see that he was enjoying himself, if only briefly.

Dean didn’t even know what Sam looked like, now.

It had been almost three years since he had last seen Sam.

But when he was alone, he’d tell the memory-Sam about the things the stars had seen, about constellations he had made up on the spot that shifted with the seasons and his position in the country. About the heroes—generally brothers, family of some kind—and the heroic deeds they had done. The tales they had spun. The legacies they had left.

Dean had heard, somewhere, that there were only thirty-six plots in the world. After reading and watching as much as he had, he could agree. Thirty-six wasn’t very much, really. But how the characters acted, _how_ they got to The End—that was different. That was new.

And so 2003 marched into 2004, and Dean was alone. He and Dad met up a few more times, but most days were just open roads, blasting music, stories whispering to him in the back seat or in the seat next to him, if he didn’t want a particularly good book to get too far away from him.

He started making sure he knew where the library or bookstore was as soon as he got into town, just as he did with diners, motels, and bars. He’d hook up with girls, drink, hustle some games (pool, darts, cards) and return to the motel, pleasantly buzzed with a book or movie waiting for him. He watched _Troy, King Arthur_ , and _I, Robot_ when they got into theaters. He read more books, from detectives like _Poirot_ to romances like _Outlander._

He wondered what it would be like to love someone, to have someone like the couples in the stories he had read. He wondered if those were just fantasies, that most relationships were like the couples he had seen—the ones where the husband or the wife kills the other for jealously, for money, for sheer hatred. He wondered if they were like Mom and Dad—loud and periods of time apart with two kids crying.

He wondered if happy endings really did exist, if it was possible for him to have one.

Was he a hero? Would he get a happy ending?

Dean dropped that thought quickly. He didn’t want an answer.

He hunted and bled and fought and drank and fucked his way through 2004, meeting up with Dad only five times that whole year, growing bitter and aching with loneliness and _he’ll do better, alright? Just come back, guys. I’ll do better, I’ll be a better son, a better brother, just come back please._

Once, sometime in August, a Black Dog got him. Slashed through his skin until the blood welled up and dripped to the ground. Dean took advantage of the dog’s momentary triumph to shoot it through the brain.

He stumbled away from it, cursing, and heaved himself into the Impala. He held his arm close to his chest, tried to stay awake so he wouldn’t crash the car.

He wondered if he should find a partner.

He would want it to be Dad, of course. But Dad didn’t seem to be around. His phone weighed heavily in his pocket, a reminder of the dot his Dad had sent a few days ago, too busy to take the time to ask his son how he was doing, to tell his son what he was up to.

When he got to the motel, he switched on the TV and washed the wound to the sound of SpongeBob talking to Patrick. The soap he applied—cheap, inexpensive—stung the wound, gnawing at the edges and making the oozing red ichor bubble as the two liquids mixed together.

He patted it dry, grateful the dog had only managed to get two of his claws into him, that it had been on his arm and not his chest or stomach.

He stitched it up to the sounds of the show’s theme song, the children’s cries drowning out his cursing and hisses of pain.

That night, he drank until he blacked out.

When he woke up, he was still alone.

2005 came without any change.

More Harry Potter—with the announcement of the fourth movie, Dean finally picked up the books. He had seen the second, had liked it, liked the monsters and the little kids trying to be serious, but he figured that the hype surrounding it was a good indication that it might be somewhat good. (That line of thought drove him to pick up _Twilight_. It was the only time he didn’t get through the first five chapters, the only time he returned a book he had stolen.)

He liked _Harry Potter_ , he realized. Bit too much of the lone-hero thing going on, but it was good.

_Batman Begins_ came out, and Dean jumped to see it. He saw _The Dukes of Hazard_ as well, loved the action scenes and the car. He watched some older movies, too. Watched _The Shining_ , the _Star Trek_ movies, _Indiana Jones, Psycho, Caddyshack, Groundhog Day_ , and _Back to the Future_. Dabbles a bit—watches _Heartbreak Hotel_ even though it wasn’t his tastes, watched it mainly because the chick he was trying to get cozy with wanted to. Wasn’t too bad, really, in a cheesy-way. Tried to watch _Robot Chicken_ and couldn’t stop laughing enough to see most of the episode.

Starts watching the new (for him, at least—a couple of episodes had already been put out) TV shows— _The X-Files, NCIS, Dr. Sexy M.D._

Wandered into a bookstore in the middle of Iowa, saw a section for Stephen King. He had liked _The Shining_ , picked up the book _Christine_ , laughed when he saw it was about a car. It went into his duffle of favorite books once he was done reading it.

The winter turned into spring turned into summer turned into autumn. Dean marked the passing months by the conditions of the road and the end of TV shows as they took months-long breaks. He marked it with new releases of movies, with changing gas prices. He scammed and drank and fucked and smiled.

At nights he read and lost himself in lives that weren’t his.

The loneliness didn’t go away. Dean hadn’t expected it to. He just learned how to ignore it.

Then Dad went missing.

Dean waited—two weeks was the most Dad went without calling or texting.

Nothing.

Dean headed for Palo Alto. He was in New Orleans at the time, didn’t even stop driving until he was forced to stop or risk crashing the Impala. The job he had just finished working had kept him up for two days beforehand. He didn’t bother with a motel, just slept on the shoulder of the deserted highway. 

Four hours later, he called it good. Hopped up front and kept going. He drove like a man possessed, hoping Sam would be there, hoping he would want to help.

Sam wouldn’t— _couldn’t_ —turn him away. This was their _family_ , damnit!

He was in Arizona, heading straight through Flagstaff, when he got the voicemail, knew that something big was going down. Knew Sammy needed to be a part of it, at least somewhat.

He didn’t want to be alone anymore.

He pulled up in front of Sammy’s apartment, looked at the dark windows a few floors up. Bit his lip. Glanced in the back seat where his duffle of books sat, some pages of a book caught over the seam of the canvas.

He reached back and grabbed it; tucking it into the hiding place he put it when Dad was around. Left to break into Sammy’s apartment, to play the wise-cracking older brother Sam expected instead of the desperately alone man he had become.

Having Sam on the road was almost as disappointing as meeting up with Dad. Sam was surly and sarcastic, grumpy and generally a wet blanket. Dean knew he was teasing too much, knew he was trying too hard to be like the Dean Sam remembered because it was the only way he knew how to act around Sam and he _missed_ Sam, okay? He missed his little brother, the kid who really kept him and Dad together through most of their crap. When Sam left, Dad did, too.

God, Dean had missed his brother, even if he was a little bitch.

Sam wasn’t going to stay—he had a life with the pretty blonde Jessica and the fancy lawyer interview and he just . . . he walked away from Dean, without regret in his eyes, as Dean pulled away from the curb. Dean tried not to be hurt, tried, instead, to take a deep breath and look for a motel. He had just picked up _Misery_ and was looking forwards to reading it.

Before he could finish thinking that out, the radio, which he had turned down low, started crackling. Dean jolted and whirled around to look at Sam’s apartment. He was turning Baby around before he could even begin to process what he was seeing and was up the stairs in time to feel the heat of a fire.

He hadn’t seen Mom die. He had just felt the heat, seen the flames. He and Sam had been out the door before he could see the remains of his mom.

But Jessica— _blonde hair, sweet face, gentle voice, so, so, so like Mom_ —was on the ceiling, midsection cut, flames everywhere, and Sam was in the middle of it all, not doing anything but screaming loudly, agonizingly.

_Just like last time_ , Dean thought distantly, morbidly, as he grabbed Sam and got the hell out of there.

They started hunting. Sam was bursting with anger, and Dean didn’t know how to deal with any of it. Didn’t know how to handle this new cold, furious Sam who was pissy at the world, at the world he had been raised in, at Dean himself.

And Dean was helpless, felt even more alone than ever.

He didn’t read anymore. Didn’t watch whatever he wanted. Sam was a man on a mission, and Dean just tried to direct his brother’s fury on something that deserved it.

The bag of books sat, untouched, in the back of the Impala.

Sam didn’t find it.

He wasn’t looking for it.

Sam didn’t ask what Dean had done in their years apart, though Dean was curious about Stanford. He was pissed Sam left him, but that anger was overwhelmed by _Sam’s here_ , really _here._

Sam gave him funny looks when Dean referenced stuff. Dean couldn’t help it—he liked comparing stuff. But while Dean had always picked up on pop culture stuff more than Sam, it was usually to impress chicks—like, _yeah, I saw that movie. Want me to prove it? Here’s a quote_. It was a way to blend it, to fit in with whatever shit school Dad left them in. He didn’t quote shit to Sam, usually. Sam was always the more up-to-date of the two of them (or so he liked to think). That was their role with each other.

God, so much of Dean had been created, cultivated, so that he fit in.

_You stand out, people remember you_ , Dad had warned. _You don’t want them to remember you._

Who would remember another jock, another playboy?

No one.

He saves people’s lives, and they don’t even remember his name.

There was a fugly scarecrow incident in Indiana, and that was when Sammy left him to hunt by himself to find Dad in California, when Dean saw how precarious their relationship still was.

Sammy was going to leave him because Dean _still_ wasn’t fucking good enough.

Dean had, in the months Sam had returned, forgotten how to hunt on his own. Leave him alone, Dean will flounder for a week and then adjust. Give him company, Dean will flounder for a week and then adjust. Sam leaving him for Dad had been unexpected, left Dean feeling even more lost than normal.

He couldn’t help the rotten taste of _I knew it_ from clogging up his throat. He had known, in the back of his mind, as soon as Dad had called, as soon as Sam had called him out on his blind faith, that Sam would leave.

So he was unused to it, let the townspeople get the drop on him.

The Sam came back, and Dean thought, in the back of his mind, _maybe . . ._

Sam told him he still wanted to find Dad, still wanted to avenge Jessica’s death. Dean didn’t blame him in the slightest.

Sam was right. Dean didn’t know that loss. Didn’t know the loss the death of a loved one caused. He had only known Mom for four years, only remembered one-and-a-half of those years.

God, Sam was right about a lot of things.

_“I don’t understand the blind faith you have in the man.”_

Just, maybe, not right about everything.

They hopped in the Impala after seeing Emily onto the bus, and Dean had wondered, _do I have faith in Dad?_

Of course he did. He had faith that Dad would find the Thing That Killed Mom. He had faith in his father’s hunting abilities. Did he have faith that his father would be there for him if he had needed it?

Dean didn’t want to examine that answer carefully, did his best to shove it down and away, instead remembering a book he had managed to finish while waiting for the couple in the orchard and lost himself in the narrative as he drove, Sam sat silently, and Warrant blared from the speakers.

They continued hunting, continued saving people, spreading the story of _these two guys saved my life once._

There were minor witches easily scared off, ghosts the burned up like paper, and haunted asylums _(like my man Jack)_ and Dean carefully thought of nothing but the case, the alcohol, and the chicks whose faces blended together as the towns flew past.

They were a few states away, holed up in some little town with only three bars and two crappy motels, when Sam spoke.

“Hey Dean?”

Sam was at his laptop, looking for a case. Dean was sprawled on the bed, reading some trashy magazine he didn’t actually care about. He wanted an actual book, with the thicker, rougher pages and the words that actually gave him something to enjoy.

“Yep?” Dean drawled, popping the ‘p’ and not looking up.

“When did you watch _One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest?”_

Dean glanced away from the blurry words on the page and settled his eyes on Sam. “What?”

Sam was looking at his, floppy haired and earnest, eyes wide. “When did you watch _One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest?”_

Dean looked nonplussed. “Dude, where did this come from?”

Sam shifted. “The, uh, asylum.”

Dean thought back to the asylum where that one doctor decided to go a little psycho himself on his patients. From his memories swam up a few words Sam and Dean had exchanged;

_“Man. Electro-shock. Lobotomies. They did some twisted stuff to these people. Kinda like my man Jack in Cuckoo's Nest.”_

_Sam ignored him. Dean, desperate for conversation, keeps going, this time about the case itself. “Whaddaya think? Ghosts possessing people?”_

_This time Sam actually responded. “Maybe. Or maybe it's more like Amityville, or the Smurl hunting.”_

_“Spirits driving them insane,” Dean said and can’t resist adding on, “kinda like my man Jack in The Shining.”_

“Dude,” Dean said once he figured out what Sam was talking about. “I watch stuff.”

“What, where most people are allowed to keep their clothes? Perish the thought!”

Sam was grinning, but when Dean returned it, it was only halfhearted. He wasn’t sure if Sam caught onto that or not. Instead he threw back a quip, made his brother wrinkle up in face in disgust, went back to reading the stupid fucking magazine.

Dean’s the dumb one, of the two brothers. He’s the one who gets by on charm, in a ship of steel and a quip for everything. He’s Han Solo—the dashing adventurer who gets tail but never stays. Sam’s Luke. He’s the hero, more than Dean could ever hope to be (and totally emo enough to play the role). Dean’s in Sam’s story, not the other way around.

Being in a story leaves a bitter taste in his mouth and when, an hour later, he announces he’s going to a bar, Sam doesn’t stop him, barely looks up from his computer.

Dean gets into Baby and drives to the library he saw coming in. He pulls up into the empty parking lot—the library had closed hours ago. He parks illegally in front of the building, as close to the doors as he can get. He gets out and heads to the trunk. There, tucked in the back, is his canvas back of books. He pulled it out and slammed the lid down.

Over the last few months, he had gotten rid of most of his collection, with Sam riding with him. One by one, they had disappeared into libraries or bookstores in the dead of night. These were the last ones he had kept.

Near the doors he unzips the bag and pulls out a handful of books— _On the Road, Sweet Silver Blues, Christine, The Great Book of Amber, and, finally, East of the Sun and West of the Moon._

The little navy blue book that started his thirst of stories was patched together. Dean finally found some book tape in a store somewhere in Virginia. When he had showed the clerk at the counter, she had asked to write something in it. Dean, thinking she’d write her number, agreed.

Instead she had written, _“It's like everyone tells a story about themselves inside their own head. Always. All the time. That story makes you what you are. We build ourselves out of that story.”_

She smiled at Dean, told him he was a wonderful father for fixing his child’s book, and Dean had left feeling unsettled.

Now he traces those words, which he had read time and time again, wondering what story he was telling himself, wondering how it had changed over the years.

He was the sidekick, in Dad’s story, in Sam’s story.

The sidekicks always die.

But he’d fight, he would, because that’s who he is, who Sam needs, who Dad raised. He’ll fight and bleed and die for them in a heartbeat because they are the heroes.

Eventually he dug out a pen and wrote neatly under the first quote; _“I know, too, that death is the only god who comes when you call.”_

Then Dean piled his books, his traveling companions, his stories, the only things that stayed, neatly into a pile and picked them up. Their covers were a collage of slick tape and torn paper, splashes of color under the dim streetlight.

Dean walked over to the library depository and opened it up, the gaping black hole swallowing his books forever.

He would never see them again, and he would not read them again.

Dean turned and walked away.

*

Later, so much later, when years have passed and pressed their weight into his heart and soul, Dean will say, _“Look, man, I got one of those too, okay, but those stories that we tell that keep us going, sometimes they blind us. They take us to dark places, kinda place where I might beat the crap out of a good man, just for the fun of it.”_

*

Later, Sam will think about those words, about how Dean talked Cole down, about how Dean spoke about the story everyone tells themselves, and wonder.

He will wonder about how Dean became, suddenly, a wealth of references that passed over even Sam’s head. He had been too busy in school, too busy in mourning, too busy in pain, to bother keeping up. Dean did. Even when the world got hard, Dean would come in, declare a new, cool movie was out, and drag Sam off to see it.

Sam remembers checking up on Dean when he was with Lisa, remembers coldly, distantly, wondering when Lisa had gained so many books and movies.

Sam remembers laughing with Bobby about Clint Eastwood, how defensive Dean was. Sam was always the nerd of the family, and he had delighted in discovering that Dean was, too.

But when had that happened?

When had Dean had time to read? To watch movies and TV shows? Sam can’t ever remember him picking up a book without great reluctance. He can’t remember Dean actually wanting to read. He always looked put-upon in school when he looked at the required reading. He never read the books for class if he could avoid it, which he usually could. They had moved so much when Dean was in high school.

When Sam returned from college, Dean still never read. He watched porn, read magazines if he was bored enough, but never grabbed a book.

Sam will wonder, then, what Dean had done when Sam was off at college.

He had always imagined it was Dean and Dad on the road, hunting things.

_“I’m twenty-six, dude,” _Dean said so very long ago, like he needed to remind Sam, like he needed to remind Sam that Dean was a capable adult. Like Dean needed to remind himself.__

Sam wished he had asked Dean, all those years ago when the world seemed out to get Sam and the rage and pain trapped in his chest itched to get out, what Dean had done. 

He wished he knew what had happened to Dean when they were apart. 

* 

Later, Sam will return to a little town he hadn’t thought twice of. There were only three bars and two crappy motels. He remembers vaguely, that there had once been an unmarked duffle in the Impala. How, after Sam had called Dean out on his new knowledge of movies, it had disappeared. 

Weeks had passed since they ran into Cole again, and Sam had spent that time trying to remember what town they had been in. 

He remembered three weeks after the incident. He stumbled across it because he found a spell that might help with the Mark, and the little town near it pinged faintly with familiarity. He borrowed a car from the garage to get there, took the long way around because the little town was on the far side. 

Element of surprise, Sam told himself, though he didn’t know who it was he was surprising. 

So now, Sam’s in a little town with three bars and two motels. There’s a library, as well, and Sam heads for that first. Inside is familiar, the rustle of paper and the low murmur of voices. 

The next day, after that conversation that Sam hadn’t thought twice about, he had headed to the library. Had heard people talk about some books—some of which were rare or out of print—which had showed up the night before. How one was a children’s book, blue, taped up heavily. The librarians had cooed over the art. 

Sam had turned away, trying to research. 

Sam heads for the children’s section, looks around for a battered blue books with lots of tape. Finds it under ‘M’. 

_East of the Sun and West of the Moon._

Sam opens it, flips through a couple of pages. Find two quotes written in on the title page, one in some stranger’s handwriting, one in a neat version of his brother’s. 

_“I know, too, that death is the only god who comes when you call.”_

Sam’s fingers tremble, shake. 

Sam hurries to the front desk. Asks where the other books that came in with this one are. 

There are only four others, the clerk tells him. 

What are they? He asks. 

_On the Road, Sweet Silver Blues, Christine, The Great Book of Amber._ She pulls them up, leads him around to them. 

There’s no quotes written inside three of them, but Sam can tell they’ve been well loved. One of them, the big fat book of _Amber_ , has gun grease on it. It makes a couple dozen pages filmy. 

The last book he tries— _On the Road,_ of course Dean—has a quote written in shaky handwriting, like Dean was writing quickly, as if he heard the quote, didn’t have it in front of him, wanted to get it down. 

_“The loneliest moment in someone’s life is when they are watching their whole world fall apart, and all they can do is stare blankly.”_

Ten years ago. 

Ten years ago, Sam had just left Stanford, had lost Jess. 

Dean was by himself before that. 

_“I was working my own case down in New Orleans,”_ Dean had said. 

How often was Dean alone? Sam wondered. How often did Dad leave him, how often did Dean have to patch himself up? 

Yet another way he had failed his brother. 

“We don’t know where they came from,” the clerk told him. “They just showed up one night. Bit strange, but not too unusual. I remember because that was my first week working here.” 

“When was this?” Sam asked. 

The clerk shrugged. “About ten years ago.” 

“I think these were my brother’s.” Sam said, tracing the cover of _Sweet Silver Blues._ There’s a guy surrounded by short people. Sam wonders what it’s about. 

“Oh,” the clerk said, shifting uncomfortably. “Well, it’s been ten years . . .” 

“No, it’s fine,” Sam interrupted her. “Really. Thank you for your time.” 

He leaves and wonders if stories were what Dean fell back on, when their family fell apart. 

The spell fell through. He’d have to do more research, have to find another way to remove the Mark. He’d have to start over. 

Sam is driving back to the Bunker, thinking about the children’s book that had been laboriously pieced back together, about the quotes written in hasty pen, splattered ink blots staining the pages. 

He’s twenty minutes away from home when his phone buzzes. 

_Where are you?_ Dean texts. 

_On my way,_ Sam replies. 

_Made burgers, the good kind,_ Dean writes. _Get your ass back here._

Sam snorts and tucks his phone away. 

When he gets back, he notices some of their fantasy books have been disturbed. He hides his smile as Dean fills the air with mindless Dean chatter, laughs with his big brother, can’t think of why he would ever want to leave. 

Dean’s story would get better. It was no less than his brother deserves. 

When he looked at Dean, all he could see was a wide, warm smile. 

Sam smiled back. 

* 

When Dad and Sam left him, Dean turned to stories. 

It was an accident, at first. A temptation. An escape. A comfort. 

Soon it was all he had. But then his brother returned, then the world needed him. 

And Dean knew that his story, his brother’s story, _their_ story, had to end sometime, as all stories do. 

Or do they? 

**Author's Note:**

> I own none of the books, movies, or TV shows that are listed and yes, they are all real and no, you will not find any books, movies, or TV shows appearing before their times (i.e., no _Martian_ in 2003, no _Hunger Games_ in 2005, no _Deathly Hallows_ in 2001). Complete list of books, movies, and shows is down in the comments :)
> 
> I hope you all enjoyed this story. If you did, I'd love to know. If you didn't, I'd love to know that, too!


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